Oatmeal-Cinnamon Cereal-Breaded Pork Chops

The name of this dish is, admittedly, a mouthful. The pork chop is a mouthful too – of crispy, juicy, cinnamon goodness.

I had just finished a lesson on proper breading technique for pan-frying thin cuts of meat, courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen Cooking School, and felt the desire to branch out a bit from the ubiquitous chicken cutlet. My pantry had gotten a rag-tag look about it, full of half-empty boxes and packets of this and that, and exotic ingredients purchased on a whim, who knows how long ago. Upon excavation, I discovered a nearly empty box of cinnamon breakfast cereal, long ago abandoned by The Boy (Mikey may like it, but The Boy is easily bored). I also found a box of instant oatmeal packets, relics from our last camping trip, in the dubious flavors of “maple brown sugar” and “apple cinnamon”, as well as the more pedestrian plain variety.

This got my brain working. If I were to spin up the instant oatmeal in the food processor, wouldn’t it be the consistency of flour? If I were to do the same to the cereal, wouldn’t I have something along the lines of bread crumbs? Aren’t pork chops, apples, and cinnamon made for each other?

Boom.

Here are the ground up oatmeal and breakfast cereal.

Here is the breading station (flour, eggs, crumbs), and an unsuspecting pork chop getting its cinnamon flour coating.

Here are the resting pork chops, all coated in astonishing flavor. Take that, Chopped! chefs who complain about what’s in your baskets. I dare you to cook from MY pantry.

Accompanying the chops on the plate are sweet potato and kale, as well as an oatmeal-cinnamon fritter of sorts I made by mixing the leftover flour, egg, and crumbs together with some milk, and fried in the pan. Yes, I am aware some would consider this a food safety issue, but I didn’t feed it to them, did I?

That’s it for now. Go open your pantry, and look at it with new eyes. Be adventurous. Don’t throw it away without trying to do something interesting with it, whatever It is. What have you got to lose? You were probably thinking about throwing it away anyway, whatever It is. Have fun, and I’ll see you soon on down the Road.

Everyone found the pork chops to their liking. The Boy didn’t partake of the other parts of the meal, but The Husband enjoyed the side dishes as well.
Breaded meats need a little time for all that great coating to set up a bit, otherwise it will fall off in the pan. 5 minutes or so is enough. Think of the flour and egg making a glue for the breadcrumbs; glue needs to set up to adhere properly. :)